Delanie Walker prepares to become Titans No. 1 tight end

After spending seven years in San Francisco as second fiddle to Vernon Davis, tight end Delanie Walker is ready to blossom in Tennessee.

“It’s like you’re getting a divorce,” Walker recently said, via Greg Pogue of FOXSportsTennessee.com. “And now you get a new wife. You gotta learn all over again. You are on your best behavior.”

Walker gained plenty of positive attention in NFL circles with a stout performance in Super Bowl XLVII, which demonstrated his full range of skills. But he wants to be more than a versatile No. 2 tight end.

“When I was with the Niners, I played 70 percent of the time,” Walker said. “Being here and having the ability to play 100 percent of the time, I think I fit into that role.”

With that role, in Walker’s mind, will come plenty of receptions.

“My goal is to get 70 catches and go from there,” Walker said. “How many touchdowns I get, we’ll see. But I’m just worried about getting the catches and helping the team move the ball.”

That would be a major jump over his career high of 29 catches, and it would constitute nearly 57 percent of his career total. With Jared Cook gone for the Rams, however, Walker will get the opportunities.

Of course, Titans running back Chris Johnson would say that Walker’s primary opportunity will be to block.

He is wayyyyy better at his job than CJ2YPC is at his. D.Walker is a beast and will be missed in SF. He was a steal by the Titans in FA and didn’t get near the attention he should have. Good luck Delanie!

He has all kinds of talent and can tackle,block,run a route but… he has developed skillet hands. He went from Charmin soft to cast iron hands. It could be Kap throwing nothing but fast balls. He is solid and he will be missed .

Chris Johnson is all for receiving threats who can help keep defenses honest, and always has been. He’s had a solid all-around TE in Stevens as his designated blocking TE, but it’s nice to have another guy who can both block — neverJared Cook’s strong suit — and hopefully average a decent YPC from that TE/H-back spot, too.

This is sounding more like a Mike Heimerdinger system (he liked his versatile 2-TE or TE/H-back sets), and IMO that’s a good thing. The Walker signing made a ton of sense. Looking forward to seeing it play out.

With the focus back on the run game, he may have opportunity to be kind of like what Frank Wycheck was back in the Eddie George / Steve McNair days. There was certainly less WR talent then, but it’s not really as if Locker is bombing it downfield. Should be a solid pickup.

Hopefully he gets his touches, im not sure if locker can consistently make plays down field, he has the arm strength but im not sure about his mechanics consistently being where they need to be for 16 games. He needs to be some what accurate with all these nice pieces the titans put around him but also the guys gotta focus and pull the catches in because last year alot of Jakes receivers dropped balls that hit them in their hands and adding ah versatile delanie walker who has the same issues with drops could make it another long tough year for us titans fans and I cant take it no more I wanna see the Titans in the playoffs.

People comparing him to Cook don’t know the Titans that well. They’re not going to be asked to do any where near the same things. The Titans have talked about using the TEs more as check down targets again like they used them when Wycheck was here and thrived. Expect to see Walker catch a lot of short passes. He’ll be asked to block and be a safe check down target. Cook on the other hand couldn’t even get on the field b/c he couldn’t block. If they put him out there on a running down, he was a liability which meant if he was out there the defense knew the Titans were going to throw it. And he was a TE w/ poor quickness who mostly just ran seam routes and drag routes.

I’m not worried about how Delanie will do, I’m worried about play-calling all around. Continuing to run CJ up the middle of a decimated line isn’t going to cut it. Dropping the DB’s back 15 yards on 3rd and 8 isn’t going to cut it. That was the infuriating thing. Our defense has some talent, young with amazing potential, but offenses tore us up through the air with mid-range passes, because our DB’s were too far back.